BEIJING – Britain’s new foreign minister made an awkward debut in China onMonday when he sought to curry favour with his hosts by mentioning hisChinese wife, but accidentally referred to her as “Japanese”.
China and Japan have been traditional rivals for centuries. Althoughrelations have improved somewhat recently, they remain touchy due to issuessuch as Japan’s bloody occupation of parts of China in the 1930s and 40s.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, on his first official visit to China,quickly acknowledged the “terrible” error.
“My wife is Japanese – my wife is Chinese. That’s a terrible mistake tomake,” he told his counterpart, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.
“My wife is Chinese and my children are half-Chinese and so we have Chinesegrandparents who live in Xian and strong family connections in China,” headded, referring to the ancient city of Xian in northern China.
A former health minister, Hunt is married to Lucia Guo, with whom he hasthree children.
He succeeds the gaffe-prone Boris Johnson – who once referred to Africansas “flag-waving piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” in a newspapercolumn – after Johnson dramatically resigned over Prime Minister TheresaMay’s Brexit blueprint earlier this month.
Hunt is in China in a bid to strengthen trade ties with Beijing ahead ofBritain’s exit from the European Union next year.
Other topics on the table are expected to be “the importance ofmultilateralism and free trade and ways the UK and China can work togetheron global challenges such as climate change, development, security andnon-proliferation and enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea”, his officesaid ahead of the trip. – APP/AFP